Tag: books

First of all before you say “oh God she’s already beginning with the new year’s resolution crap”. We’re not starting that. No leave it at front door before you click on this blog post.

This is not a post where I talk about making New Year’s Resolutions. No, but it is a blog post where I talk about preparing for 2018. Yes I’m putting on my armor, 2018 is soon to come crashing in. Frankly I would be rather upset if my hair caught on fire in the process. Ah needless to say, we need to prepare because coming to 2018 is the see ya and the bye ya to procrastination and negativity. It’s all in good thought, because I know some habits are a never ending battle to break. BUT, I’m not the type to give up.

So we’re going to grab onto 2018 with our resting bitch face, and hold on as it drags us through stress, new experiences ,and lots of other muck. By the end, maybe a smile will be permanently stuck on. Ah who knows.

2018 is as quickly approaching as 2017 is to be ending. 2017 has not been a good year. I know for myself it’s been a bad enough year that I don’t need to repeat it. I’ve got to work my butt off to make sure that 2017 stays in the past.

I know they say it’s bad to tell people your goals, but this is a judgement free zone. I know that stating my goals forces me to uphold them.

My goal for 2018 are normal and a little weird. First off I want to get healthy. I have not been myself, and that needs to change. I want to get on a more positive attitude, and try not to procrastinate as much. The next thing that I would like to do is publish at least two books. I have a book hopefully coming out around in March. After that, don’t ask me. I would like to continue to build my author brand more and see where I can take my book sales.

I don’t have a lot for 2018 as I am doing this thing where I stop talking and actually get work done.

Enough said.

To prepare for 2018, I am grabbing my computer, planner, and favorite boots.

On my social media you can find a variety of different things. On Facebook you will find me sharing my books with the world, as well as sharing other author’s work. I also do book giveaways. On my Instagram page I share photos of my dogs, beautiful nature photos, I do giveaways, and I love to show off my book. On my YouTube channel I blog about nature, my writing experience, and makeup tutorials. My newest is flipagram which I share beauty tutorials on.

I finally got my writer head together. I’ve been in a weird mind set for a while. I don’t know how long. Four maybe five years. For this long time I’ve been trying to find myself again.

After a solid week of focusing on myself, I think I’ve finally met that personal goal. It’s not even December and I’m making resolutions for the new year. I know who I am now and I know what I am meant to do.

I think every writer/creative individual goes through this phase, but I am tired of going through this phase. It’s time I get it together and go for the gold.

Life is life. It can be crappy yeah, but without the right mindset. It can wreck your dreams before you ever realize it.

Don’t start tomorrow, don’t start a week from now. Start tonight. Forget your inhibitions. Erase your insecurities. Push out all the people who keep dragging you back to the place you don’t want to be.

It’s hard to drop everything and move on, but this is the only life you have to live. Time passes quickly. When tomorrow comes, you’ll wish you had changed your life yesterday. So I’m telling you as I have told myself. Start right now.

The road to unhappiness is paved by all the things in life you fear. Stop fearing, get up. Finish that novel, go on an adventure, sell your house, move across the country. Go back to school. Do what makes you happy.

I spent two years of my life trying to make the decision. It’s easy to say I wasted all that precious writing time trying to convince myself why one was better than the other.

Did it gain me anything? Absolutely.

I have forged this relationship with myself. Try, if it doesn’t work, try again. Eventually if you try and fail enough things will eventually work themselves out. Could take a month, or several years. A lifetime in most cases. But there’s a beauty to this try and fail experience. If it gets done in a lifetime, I’ve done my job as a writer.

I’ve surpassed the selling one book mark by a great deal. All it takes is selling one book and you’ve gotten your name out there.

What does that have to do with traditional vs indie publishing? The truth is it has everything to do with it.

When you ask yourself the question and ponder an answer. You find out your goals as a writer. Do I want to go big or go home? Or do I want to find my own way in this world by the fight of my own ambition?

When I think about it, I look back and I don’t regret a thing. I am human, and I make mistakes. It’s part of living in our era, with the internet and all. It’s hard not to regret.

Two years ago I was pushing to get through The Devil’s Retreat and spitting out disastrous query letters. I had every intention of querying agents because I spent nights awake convincing myself, self-publishing is a bloody disaster. I wasn’t wrong either way. Traditional publishing can be as big of a disaster as Indie Publishing can. It’s all part of learning.

After finishing my novel and sitting on it for about six months I decided a year ago to go Indie. Back in August I published The Devil’s Retreat as an Indie author. I’m happy with my experience.

The name of one of the panels I spoke on over the weekend seems fitting for discussion.

Who am I? What is my brand? What thing do I identify myself with? How do you build an author brand? Do you even know what you are doing?

The answer is simple: I have no idea.

Logically I am learning as I go.

It may seem amateurish to admit that my mind is blown by marketing and all this technological use that comes with being an author and building an author brand. Really that does not bother me. I’ve always been a little strange and I’ve been able to incorporate that into my brand building.

What’s the use of building around yourself when you’re not really being yourself? The answer to that is, it’s completely useless. Being fake, is just an asshole ploy to try to teach people you’re this perfect little ball of writerly perfection. I tried that, made a fool of myself and have shucked out the parachute to land on Plan B. Take my advice, actually build a brand around yourself, the real you. The world needs more creatives, not more fakers.

If you’ve got a weird quirk, go with it. WE ALL HAVE THEM. I have more than I care to list, but that’s besides the point. Getting back on point, building a brand.

Okay, I have no idea what I’m doing but it’s working out for me so. Honestly I think that is the reality of building your own brand. None of us know what we are doing. Most of us if not all of us started from scratch, had to get our names out there, go to events, do things we maybe didn’t want to do. Even though that may be true, we all have different paths. Individually we have to find what works for us.

So when building the brand of you:

Be Yourself

Accept the fact that you are learning as you go

Be open to meeting new people

Find something to identify with, to build you brand around, to make yourself noticeable (maybe a certain hairstyle, costume/outfit, a persona, or an object/ thing, characterization) For example: I write about monsters, so everyone thinks of me as monster girl. The girl who writes about monsters.

Market till the site of ads will make you want to throw a book at someone ( pun intended)

Posts navigation

Biography

Brooke Myers is young author from Southern Indiana. Myers writes mystery and suspense. She is on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/brookemyersauthor/. Myers is also on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/brookemyersauthor/ Follow along with Brooke’s journey as she navigates the author world in her early career.